Daisy held up the large sheets of paper in her hands and turned slowly in a circle to take in the construction site around her. Her eyes moved constantly between the plans and the work completed so far. She wanted to jump with pride. “Isn’t it simply marvelous?”
Swift progress had been made on the house in the short time that the men had been building it. The basements had all been dug, the sub-cellars all done to exacting specifications, including the lead and wooden pipes for the new plumbing system she’d designed throughout the property. The gas pipes had also been laid from the bottom up, and she could see the end of one now from where she stood, jutting out from the half-finished second-floor wall of a future bedroom. The exterior stone walls had been erected, along with the frames for the interior walls and floors, and only the last finishing touches needed to be made before work shifted from the outside structure to the inside.
As she turned in her circle, she saw all of the house’s promise. Her mind leapt ahead to days of sunlight falling through tall windows onto plasterwork ceilings and papered walls. It would illuminate marble fireplaces and columns, large archways to allow people to come and go happily through the house, lovely wall paintings of vines and flowers so that summer would be present even during the bitterest winters—
Her gaze landed on Whitby, and she stopped. A grim expression darkened his face. He was anything but excited about the site visit.
And Whitby being anything but excited wasn’t at all like him. Especially about the house.
For heaven’s sake, he’d practically bounced every time he’d visited her home to learn what new progress had been made, see any new designs, and discuss with Papa whatever problems had cropped up at the house site. Whitby still believed that Elias Daring was overseeing the project, making all decisions, and simply delegating instructions to Daisy to pass along to the builders. On the days when he hadn’t visited—which weren’t more than a handful since the project began—Whitby had sent a flurry of notes, which often had nothing to do with the house at all. So many notes that Daisy had felt he’d been right there in the room with her anyway.
Whitby had always been overly enthusiastic and exuberant about every detail, no matter how small, right down to the boot scraper on the front step that he wanted to match the door knocker. At first, a part of her thought he was pretending to be excited about the house simply because she was excited about it. But the more she came to know him, the more she realized that being excited was simply Whitby’s natural state. Fish swam, birds flew…Whitby grinned and bounced.
But today, he wasn’t at all grins and bounces. He simply wasn’t himself.
Something was wrong. Concerned, she lowered the plans. “You don’t think it’s grand?”
He rolled an uncertain glance at the exposed studs and beams of the half-finished walls, the floors whose gaps between the planks allowed views all the way down into the basement, the ceiling that was just as open as the floor. His brow arched apprehensively. “I think I’m standing on a bunch of sticks piled over a hole in the ground.”
“No. You’re standing in your bedroom.” With a reassuring smile, she rested the plans against a section of wall boards and tapped her finger on the sheet. “Right here.” She nodded toward the far wall—er, at what would soon become a wall. “That end of the room is going to be walled off for your dressing room, complete with one of those shower tubs we talked about.”
That didn’t ease his frown, which bothered her more than she wanted to admit and twisted the tiny muscles in the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t used to Whitby with any other expression except a bright smile, and his behavior worried her.
“There are no windows at that end of the room,” he grumbled. “How am I supposed to have enough light to get dressed?”
“With this in the ceiling.” She pointed at the sketch. “It’s called a skylight. We’ve added a false façade to the roof so no one can see it from below, but it’ll let in just as much light as a regular window. We’re putting one here in your dressing room and another over the stair hall to light the center of the house.”
With a noncommittal grunt, he put his hands on his hips and surveyed what he could see of the house.
“Just think of it, Whitby,” she cajoled. “In the evenings, after a long day, you’ll be able to soak in a hot bath while watching the moon and stars overhead. Then you’ll go into your sitting room through that connecting door to enjoy the fire and a glass of your favorite brandy before retiring here into your bedroom.” She gestured a hand toward the sitting room, a space that was completely his and off-limits to the boys who would be living with him. However, she’d taken her own initiative to design a connecting door between it and the bedroom on the far side of it. After all, someday he would marry, and that bedroom would become his wife’s.
Whitby with a wife—an unexpected pang jolted inside her at the thought. Oh, it couldn’t be jealousy!
She bit her lip. Could it?
Not daring to let herself contemplate that, she forced her attention back to the plans. “I know it’s hard to imagine what the finished house will look like when it’s still just a skeleton like this, but please do try. We need to start making decisions about the interiors.”
In the past, when her father had completed his plans for clients’ houses, he’d brought the men and their wives to the sites for visits. He’d wanted them to be part of the process from the very beginning. So it was only natural that Whitby would have his own site visit. She’d brought him here under the pretense that she was only relaying information between the builders and her father, but in truth, she wanted to do what her father had done in the past and show Whitby the progress that was being made. The way a real architect would for a client.
She was beginning to think that was a mistake.
“Trust me,” she assured him. “Once you envision the final details, you’ll feel much better about it.”
The house was still a hollow shell, granted, but it was quickly taking shape. The builders needed to know in which direction to head when they finished the structure, which would be soon, and so Daisy needed to get started on the final touches. The end of the project would be here before they realized it.
Another pang pulsed through her. This one she recognized. Regret…that the project would soon be over and she’d no longer have reason to see Whitby every day. Heavens! Had anyone told her three months ago that she’d feel this way, she would have said they were mad as a hatter. But that’s exactly what had happened, and the completion of the house would be a bittersweet moment.
She cleared the emotion from her throat. “So let’s focus on finalizing the details for the interiors.”
He gazed out the wide opening where a bay window would eventually go, then down through the gap in the floorboards to the hole of the basement beneath them. “Let’s focus on finishing the interiors first.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t put off making these decisions much longer. You have to decide what kind of windows and doors you want, what finishes, what plasterwork. If you want any built-in shelves, closets, or alcoves. If you want wooden stairs or marble.” She gave a silent sigh and rolled up the plans. Judging from his reaction, she didn’t care about any of that, so she appealed to a higher authority. “I need to tell Papa what you’re asking for so that he can write out instructions for the builders.” She forced a smile. “Otherwise, you’ll have a townhouse without a staircase.”
His mouth twisted, not swayed by her argument or her attempt at humor.
“Whitby, you have to trust me when I tell you that the construction is going remarkably well.” She rested her hand on his arm. His bicep tightened reflexively beneath her fingers, and her breath hitched. She had to swallow before she continued, “I know it doesn’t look like much now, but you have to envision the final house and how wonderful it will be.” She flashed him a smile. “Few people have the stomach to see how sausages are made either, but in the end, people love them.”
“I don’t have a sausage.” He gestured at the nonexistent window and frowned. “I have a hole.”
“The windows will be put in as soon as—”
“And I have an architect who’s been lying to me.”
Slowly, she dropped her hand away and forced a tight smile. “Papa hasn’t lied about the process. You’re just nervous about—”
“Not Elias. You, Daisy.” He pointed irritably at the roll of pages in her hand. “Elias didn’t do those plans. He doesn’t know anything about the skylights or shower tubs. When I spoke to him yesterday, he didn’t even know that the square was plumbed for both water and gas. That means that Elias Daring isn’t my architect.” He folded his arms over his yellow and white striped waistcoat and leveled a no-nonsense gaze on her. “You are. And you’ve been lying to me about it.”
She froze beneath his accusation. Her heart pounded brutally against her ribs as the shock twisted through her. He knew…
Wide-eyed beneath his hard gaze, she forced herself to breathe. That was why he was acting so out of sorts today, why he wasn’t teasing her and smiling the way he’d always done before, why he was so irritable. He was angry because he knew she and her father had been dishonest with him. Dear heavens…he knew!
Guilt gripped her at his accusation. She couldn’t find the words to deny it.
“Be honest with me.” He took the plans from her numb fingers with a grimace. “This is your work. All of it. From the very beginning.”
“Yes,” she breathed out, blinking away the stinging in her eyes.
“You’re the one who hired the builders, the one who’s overseeing all the excavation work, masonry, and framing?”
She nodded sharply. The knot of emotion in her throat clenched too tightly for her to speak.
“This whole time, you’ve pretended that it was your father who drafted those plans, while you let yourself be relegated to the interior designs.”
“Interior designs are important,” she argued in a feeble attempt to protect her pride. “They finish a house.”
“Finish a house? Daisy, you’re building an entire house! And all the while you’ve been hiding the truth from me, which is the worst of all. Because I trusted you.” He tucked the plans into a niche in the unfinished wall beside them, then removed his hat and raked his fingers through his ginger hair. “Why? Why would you dissemble with me about something this important?”
She knew he didn’t mean the house itself. “Because Papa’s sick and hasn’t been able to work,” she rushed out as the guilt swelled unbearably inside her. She wrung her hands. “The bills were piling up, the tuition couldn’t be paid, the doctors began to demand payment upfront or they wouldn’t examine Papa… Don’t you see? I had to do the projects, collect the commissions—” She choked off as a look of pity tightened his face, and an expression of worry that he’d now cancel the project surely darkened hers. Desperately, she assured him, “But there’s no need to cancel the project. You’ll have a wonderful house in the end, I promise you. Exactly what you wanted, what the boys need—I promise you!”
“Daisy.” He took her arms and leaned in to touch his lips to hers, the innocent kiss reassuring and calming. “I have no intention of canceling this project.”
She blinked rapidly. “You—you don’t?”
“Not at all. I know that it’s going to be a wonderful house. I have no doubts of that.” He rested his cheek against hers, and his warm breath tickled her ear when he asked softly, “But why did you lie to me? Me of all people… You didn’t have to.”
“Yes, I did.” She swallowed down the bitterness. “Because I’m a woman.”
He pulled back just far enough to gaze into her eyes with mock solemnity. “I’ve noticed.”
She couldn’t help a faint bubble of laughter despite the humiliated tears that threatened to fall. “Then you’ve also noticed that women can’t be architects.”
“Says who?”
She sniffed. “Everyone in the world.”
“Not true. Not me. I don’t mind having a woman for an architect.” He reached into his breast pocket to retrieve his handkerchief and held it out to her. “What I mind is when my friend keeps secrets from me.”
“I had no choice.” Her hand trembled as she took the handkerchief and dabbed it at her nose. “You wouldn’t have hired Papa and me if you’d known. Besides, who would pass up the chance to design a brand-new house filled with all kinds of modern amenities like gas lighting and wooden pipes?” She gestured a hand at the structure around her. “It’s my dream come true, and I didn’t want to risk being denied the chance.” Her vision blurred, and she swiped at her eyes. “But you’re right. As your friend, I should have told you the truth. I’m sorry.”
He nodded somberly, accepting both her answer and apology. “Are there any other secrets I should know about? Are you also a navy captain or army general, or the second secret wife of King George? Are you also a circus performer?” His somber expression melted into that beaming smile she’d come to know and appreciate. “Because that last one would be grand if you were. Think of it! A tightrope walker or juggler—”
“Whitby,” she admonished.
“An acrobat—wouldn’t that be thrilling? To watch you go tumbling across the—”
“Whitby!” She placed her hands over his mouth to silence him with a laugh that was half embarrassment, half astonishment. Then her shame faded into a soft smile for him, and she dropped her hands away, to rest them lightly on his shoulders. “I promise to be the best architect possible for this house and to check with Papa on all questions and concerns. I’ll keep the builders on schedule and below budget, and I’ll make certain that the materials haven’t been skimped upon, as so many townhouses built on short leaseholds are.”
“Ninety-nine,” he admitted.
“Pardon?”
“My leasehold. I secured a ninety-nine-year lease.” He looked around at the half-built house as if seeing it for the first time. “This is going to be my home for the rest of my life.”
The pressure of providing the perfect home settled like the weight of the world onto her shoulders. Ninety-nine years… “And your children’s,” she told him, pondering the length of the lease. “And your children’s children’s.” She frowned. “And perhaps their children’s.”
“Golly, I hope so!”
He took both of her hands in his and bounced them lightly with a light laugh. She knew then that everything would be all right between them.
“Come out of hiding, Daisy Daring,” he cajoled. “Let the rest of the world discover how brilliant and creative you are.”
He reached into his waistcoat and removed a folded piece of paper. He held it out to her.
She frowned. “What’s that?”
“The King and John Nash have announced an architectural contest. They’re looking for architects to design one of the villas that’s to be built in Regent’s Park. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to showcase your ideas.”
Well, he was wrong about that. Yet curiosity won out, and she unfolded the announcement to read it.
“The winning architect receives a cash prize, their plans built, and all kinds of recognition.” Excitement pulsed from him. “Just imagine what it would do for your career as an architect.”
Yes. Destroy it before it ever began, right along with her father’s. If anyone discovered that she’d been creating house plans, she’d never be able to work again in Papa’s stead without raising questions. Their ruse would end, and then where would they be? Completely without income and in danger of being labeled as frauds. She couldn’t risk that.
Still, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have her ideas evaluated by the judges?
Yet sharp reality won over her senses, and she glumly shook her head. “This contest is for architects. What makes you think I’d be allowed to enter, let alone win?”
“Because you are an architect. Look around you!” He held out his arms to indicate the shell of a house. “You built this. You—not your father. And it’s spectacular.”
She arched a challenging brow. “You said it was a hole.”
“Well, it is. Now. But give it three months, and it will be the envy of the entire west side of London. Those other architects who’ll enter Nash’s contest won’t even consider the kinds of technologies and modern improvements you’ve implemented here. Skylights! Gas! Shower tubs! Dear heavens—for the shower tub alone you should be given a medal.”
She looked away, the impossibility of what he was suggesting grating her chest raw. No one would care about any of her ideas once they realized that a woman had suggested them. Instead of granting her the due she deserved, the judges would pat her patronizingly on the head and send her away with orders to marry and birth babies. She’d be publicly shamed for daring to overstep her place and showing that a woman could be as talented as a man. The architectural world would never forgive her for that.
“The others will be stuck thinking inside the box of a typical townhouse,” Whitby went on, “doing nothing more than fiddling with the front façade and the placement of the stairs, while yours will be revolutionary.”
“Because they lack imagination,” she whispered so softly that her voice was barely above a breath.
“Exactly! Besides, you’re Daisy Daring.” He took her arms again. As he leaned in toward her, his gaze dropped longingly to her mouth. His voice lowered achingly. “The most wonderful, most special woman I’ve ever met.”
She held her breath, knowing he was going to kiss her, and a kiss not at all like the chaste ones he’d given her before. She wanted it. At that moment, she wanted to feel special, brilliant, creative—all those wonderful things that Whitby claimed she was. She wanted to believe in herself the way he did, even if it couldn’t last more than this moment.
When his lips touched hers, her heart soared at his tenderness. She tasted his affection for her, the close friendship they shared, and more. She also tasted a yearning in him, not of desire but to please her. That thoughtfulness threatened to unleash new tears from her.
When she slid her hands over his shoulders to encircle his neck, he slipped his arms around her and gently brought her against him. The kiss deepened, its intensity growing, yet she knew he would stop and release her if she breathed a single word. But she didn’t want to stop. Something had changed in the way she saw him, in the way it felt to be with him. Now she welcomed his embrace and pressed herself against him.
He murmured her name and touched the tip of his tongue to her lips, lightly caressing their seam and softly cajoling her to open to his kiss. With a sigh, she capitulated. His tongue slipped between her lips in a silken glide that left her breathless. He was no longer kissing her— God help her, he was exploring her, learning the dark recesses of her mouth and stirring a faint ache low in her belly. His hands swept up and down her back in soothing circles that only increased the odd sense of need blossoming inside her. Need for Hugh Whitby… Whoever would have believed it? Yet that was exactly what she felt, and she melted against him, fisting her hands in the lapels of his purple jacket to keep him close as she dared to touch her tongue to his.
A low groan sounded from the back of his throat. She smiled triumphantly at enticing such a reaction from him, only for her smile to vanish with a gasp when he began to move his tongue inside her mouth. He twirled between her lips, encircling her tongue in a decadent and sensuous motion that turned her legs boneless.
She was shocked—not at the wonderful kiss he was giving her but that he was so skilled at kissing, so able to do things with his tongue and lips that she’d never dreamt men could do. Just as she was shocked to find that despite his slender frame his shoulders were solid beneath her fingers as she clenched them, his chest hard when her hand trailed down his front and played idly with the buttons on his waistcoat.
He slid his mouth away from hers and left her panting to gain back her breath. He nuzzled his cheek against her temple and tremulously whispered, “May I…may I touch you?”
The sweetness of his request warmed her all the way down to her toes. So did the uncertainty behind it, as if he worried that she might reject him.
He had no reason to worry.
“Yes,” she whispered, “you may…”
Excitement rushed through her on the heels of a shiver. Even though this was Whitby, even though nothing more could happen here in the openness of the house site than a few stolen kisses, she was nervous despite craving his hands on her. Nervous because she craved his hands on her in a way she’d never wanted any other man to touch her. She trusted Whitby and knew that he didn’t want to caress her because he would enjoy it but because she would. He wanted only to please her, and this moment became all the more precious because of it.
As his lips returned to hers, his left hand slipped slowly down her back to stroke her bottom in slow circles, and his right moved upward along the side of her body until it cupped her breast. Then he stilled to give her the opportunity to refuse him now that his hands were on her. But she didn’t want him to stop and leaned into his palm to bring him harder against her.
Layer upon layer of clothing kept his fingers from touching her bare breast, yet her nipple drew up into a hard point that ached to be fondled. As if reading her mind, he flicked his thumb over the little bump to pleasure her as best he could through her clothes at the same time that he squeezed her bottom.
The ache that had blossomed in her belly plummeted downward to land between her legs in a sharp throb. A soft whimper of need fell from her lips, and she shifted her hips to brush against his front.
“We have to stop now,” he murmured regretfully even as he kept her encircled in his arms.
“Why?”
He grinned against her hair, but she knew his smile was forced. “Because I don’t want to stop.”
Me either. Yet she didn’t dare speak that aloud. She hugged him tightly, placed one last kiss to his lips, and then stepped out of his arms.
They stared at each other, the silence awkward. His lips were red from her kisses, his blue eyes bright. Not looking away, she lifted her hand to touch her own lips, to feel the tingling and heat he’d put into them.
Confusion sparked through her, chasing on the heels of an inexplicable urge to let him do that to her again. And this time, not stop.
“Miz Darin’!” someone shouted to her from two floors below. She took a moment to recognize the voice—her building supervisor. “Got a few questions fer ya to relay t’ ya father fer in th’ mornin’.”
“Coming,” she called back and inwardly cursed the sudden thickness in her voice. She cleared her throat and tried again, “We’ll be right down.”
She snatched up the plans and hurried down what would eventually become the hallway and rear stairs, not looking behind to see if Whitby was following.
Thank goodness for the interruption! Had she lost her mind? She needed time to think, to sort through the temporary madness that had made her kiss him—Whitby, of all men!—and a client, no less. The son of a baron. And the most improbable man for her.
But when her feet hit the ground-floor landing, she couldn’t prevent a happy smile from spreading across her face.
“Papa should be in the parlor,” Daisy told Whitby when they arrived home from the site visit.
He’d insisted on accompanying her all the way back, although she’d protested that she was more than capable of riding the two miles in a carriage on her own. But the gentleman he was wouldn’t let her travel alone, even though the tension between them had been as thick as rain.
“He’ll want to hear your thoughts about the house’s progress.” She bit her bottom lip and lowered her voice. “Please tell him that we’re ahead of schedule and under budget.”
“All right.”
With a parting smile as if nothing were wrong, she headed quickly up the stairs to return the plans to the studio. It was cowardly to flee like this, she knew, but she couldn’t tolerate for a moment longer the awkwardness that had lingered between them since their embrace. She desperately needed to clear her head, go over every detail in her mind, and think about what to do—or say—next.
“Daisy.” He took her elbow from behind and stopped her on the second step. She didn’t turn around. “We should talk about what happened.” A pause so short no one else would have noticed, but she heard the uncertain hope in his voice. “And about whether it should happen again.”
Oh, she simply couldn’t! Even now, her face heated with embarrassment. How could she talk about what happened when she had no idea what to think about it or what to say? As for doing it again… He was Whitby, for heaven’s sake! How could she consider a serious courtship with him? She needed to keep attention away from herself if she had any chance of continuing Papa’s work—the only chance she would ever have at doing her own. But Whitby was a walking, talking, brightly painted sign of attention. Even now he was dressed flamboyantly in satin and kerseymere and in several shades of purples and yellows; his waistcoat was cut fashionably high enough to show a second layer of contrasting pattern beneath in yet another shade of purple, and the gold tassels on his boots swung with each step he took. His appearance would have made every dandy on St James’s street cry out in envy for all the heads he would turn the minute he stepped into White’s or Boodle’s.
What would people say about her whenever she was with him? She couldn’t fade into the background then. Not with his red hair, those bright blue eyes, and his every thought and emotion showing unfiltered upon his face. If he couldn’t hide a single emotion from the world, how would he ever be able to help her hide her work if she let him court her?
Because that’s what he meant when he spoke of kissing again, she knew. He wanted to pursue her.
“I—I can’t,” she stammered and slowly drew her arm from his grasp. “Not yet.” A sigh tore from her at the disheartened expression that flashed across his face and proved all her suspicions. “I need to think, to consider… Later.” Her shoulders slumped heavily, and she nodded toward the front room. “Go visit Papa. Tell him what you think of the house, all right?”
“All right.” He retreated to the bottom of the stairs. “But we’ll need to talk about it eventually.”
When pigs flew… She pled instead, “When you talk with Papa, please don’t tell him that you know he didn’t do the plans himself. Let him continue the ruse, all right? Elias Daring might be sick and old, but he still has his pride.”
He considered for a moment, as if ready to persist in pressing her for an answer, but then he acquiesced with a faint nod. “I’ll see you again soon.”
And that was what bothered her.
Without another word, she hurried up the stairs to the studio. She closed the door behind her and leaned back against it, squeezing her eyes shut against the confusion swirling in her head. She took deep breaths and tried to calm her racing pulse and the tingling that tickled at her toes as she thought about his kisses and caresses. They’d been nice.
Oh, what a goose she was! They’d been so much more than nice. Kittens and puppies were nice. Afternoon teas and museum visits were nice. What she’d done with Whitby was…simply delicious.
Who would have thought that someone who looked like Whitby would be so skilled at kissing? The touch of his hands and what he’d done with his tongue—oh my.
“Oh no,” she told herself and shoved away from the door.
Whatever madness had gripped her this afternoon was over. It was time to stop thinking about Whitby and go back to work. She set the rolled-up house plans onto her drafting table, and a piece of paper fluttered to the floor.
The contest announcement.
With a grimace, she snatched it up. Her, enter a contest like this—madness!
Just as she was about to crumple it and toss it away, she stopped. Her eyes swept over the information again, and a longing to be part of the contest flooded over her so fiercely that she shuddered. If only she could enter! Yet she knew better. An entry with her name on it would be a complete waste of time.
But one with Elias Daring’s name… That was altogether different matter.
She picked up the plans for her dream house. She’d endlessly fussed over these plans until they were perfect, right down to the tiniest detail. Her heart melted. Whitby was right. They were lovely…far too lovely to never see the light of day. Not sharing these plans was like owning a Beethoven sonata that could never be played.
Her gaze slid to the announcement, and she bit her bottom lip. What if she did enter them into the contest—rather, what if Elias Daring did? Certainly, it would never be the same as being able to take credit for them herself, openly and fully, but it was also the only way her plans would ever be taken seriously. When Papa won, she could say that she’d helped with them and gain some credit that way—well, not some. Nearly none at all. But the validation she would gain from hearing others unwittingly praise her work might be the only brush with the architectural community she would ever have as an equal.
It would have to be enough. Somehow.
“They will see you,” she told her dream house as she lovingly traced her fingers over the sketches. “And they will fall in love.”
She reached for her pencil and straightedge and began to polish the plans. After all, she—that is, her father—had a contest to win.
Whitby rapped on the front door of the Daring’s townhouse, with a large bouquet of flowers in his hand. He grinned with happiness. Zounds, what a beautiful day! And made all the better by being able to call on Daisy. Because today was the day. Not just the day when he finally made her talk about what happened last week at the site—after all, she’d managed to wiggle out of discussing it whenever he’d come by since then—but so much more.
Today he planned to ask Elias for permission to formally court his daughter.
The door opened, and Mrs. Jones smiled welcomingly. “Well, Mr. Whitby! Is that you behind all those flowers?”
He lowered the bouquet with a wide grin. “They’re for the Darings.” But really for Daisy—a big bunch of daisies for one beautiful Daisy, with enough pink carnations mixed in that he could save face and say they weren’t just for her if she refused his courtship. Sweet Lucifer, he prayed she didn’t refuse! “We’re celebrating the first of the windows going into the house.”
“Aren’t you thoughtful? And what beautiful flowers, too.” She leaned over to take a quick sniff before stepping back to let him pass into the house. “Come inside and let me tell Mr. Daring that you’re here.”
“And Daisy?” he tried to ask casually as he pulled one of the pink carnations from the bouquet and handed it to Mrs. Jones. “Is she home?”
The older woman blushed as she accepted the flower. “Oh, I’m afraid not. She’s gone out to run some errands.” She raised the flower to her nose and pulled in a deep sniff, then smiled at the perfumed scent. “Said she probably won’t be back until the shops close right before dinner.”
Disappointment panged inside him, but he didn’t let his smile waver. “Well, then I’ll call on her again tomorrow, I suppose. She said she had the interior plans completed for the stair hall and dining room.”
“I’m sure she does. But Mr. Daring could discuss them with you, as well. After all, he’s the architect.”
So…Mrs. Jones didn’t know that he knew the truth. Best to keep it that way, so he nodded and agreed tongue-in-cheek, “No man better for the job.”
“Certainly not!”
Hiding the amusement he was sure sparkled on his face, he gestured into the heart of the house. “No need to bother with showing me to the parlor. I know the way, and I’m certain Elias won’t mind if I pop in unannounced.” He dropped his gaze to the flowers. “But perhaps you could fetch a vase for these, if you don’t mind?”
“Not at all!” She smiled at him. “And why not some tea, too, while I’m in the kitchen?”
“You’re a peach, Mrs. Jones.” With a wink, he handed her a second carnation. “A true peach!”
She laughed faintly with embarrassment, then left to hurry down to the kitchen.
Whitby dragged in a deep breath of courage and turned toward the parlor. It was time to face his future and her father.
But when he stepped into the room, he found Elias asleep in his chair in front of the window, his book having fallen open onto his lap and his spectacles hanging crooked from his nose. The man let out a little snore.
Whitby sighed in frustration, and his hand with the bouquet fell to his side. Well, nothing was going as planned today, but he refused to take any of it as a portent for the success of his courtship.
Instead, he’d treat it as a good time to check on the house, so he hurried upstairs to the studio.
He smiled to himself. Plans and sketches of all kinds covered her drafting table. Grand exterior façades to detailed ceiling plasterworks, drawings of carved newel posts made to look like Grecian caryatids carrying oil jars on their heads and others made to look like elegantly bending flowers, beautiful fanlights and sidelights…She was good with overall house plans, he wouldn’t begrudge her that. But her true talent lay in the interiors. All of the king’s grand houses in London and Brighton paled in comparison to the simple, uncluttered elegance and beauty of Daisy’s designs.
He took one of the sketches and held it up to the window. Brilliant.
He laid it aside, and his boot brushed against something on the floor. He looked down—a tube of heavy, rolled paper tied with a piece of purple ribbon. What on earth…? With a perplexed frown, he untied the ribbon and unrolled the sheets of paper.
He bit his cheek to keep from cheering. They were Daisy’s plans for her dream house, with a letter of application for the contest. She was entering! It was all wrapped up and ready to be delivered to St James’s Palace for submission. Except…
He noticed the name scrawled across the bottom right corner. Not hers. Elias’s.
He mumbled, “What are you planning?”
He unfolded the letter. In it, Daisy once more gave credit to her father for creating work she’d done herself. He grimaced. Elias Daring was fraudulently entering the contest that should have been Daisy’s to win.
“Not if I can help it.” He reached for the eraser sitting on her desk and briskly rubbed it over the plans to remove Elias’s name. He picked up her drafting pencil and signed Daisy’s name for her. Then he took down the quill and ink set from the nearby bookshelves and quickly scratched out a new letter in which he made certain that Daisy took ownership for her wonderful designs and credit for the entry. He finished the letter, then put it inside the plans and carefully rolled them up again.
Humming happily to himself as he left the studio, he took the entry with him to submit it for her. In its place he left the flowers.